Do New Year’s resolutions ever work?
It’s been a month since people across the country rang in 2019 with vows to quit sugar, get fit and get their finances in order. But are resolutions always doomed to failure, ponders TV host David Campbell.
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Well, it’s February, so surely by now you have gotten over the festive season.
The Christmas tree is packed away. You have no choice but to get back to work to pay off the credit cards from your last-minute online shopping spree. Or maybe from that Griswold-style vacation you just got back from with the kids.
Perhaps it’s both. I am in no position to judge.
But there is something you have forgotten already. Come on, think. It’s right there... A certain promise? To someone special? Ringing any bells? No?
This is because you, like most of us, have already forgotten your New Year’s resolutions.
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It’s understandable. I mean, it’s already been a month and I can barely remember what the holidays felt like.
I guess I was more relaxed. (The kids were perfectly behaved at all times in the photos on my phone.)
Besides, we’ve all said things we’d rather forget when we’re drunk at an end-of-year party.
It’s the reason why several years ago, on one fateful eve of a new calendar year, I made one final big one to myself.
No. More. Resolutions. We are only setting ourselves up for failure. I have disappointed many a person in my time, but it was time to stop doing it to me.
The self-loathing while losing at self-improvement was creating too much pressure. You know it and I know it.
No more sugar... on holidays with three kids? Near impossible.
Really take care of that work-life balance? After this credit-card bill and the electricity coming in? I need to get a side hustle.
Stop saying terms like “side hustle” to appear cooler and appeal to a “younger demographic”? Too late now.
I was at peace. It was freeing. So why had I fallen into the trap once more?
I was barely a day into 2019 when the classic resolution cliché came cascading out of my mouth to my wife.
“Honey, I think I’m really going to get in shape this year.”
I was weak. It was a blur. I wasn’t even drunk.
Stone cold sober.
To her credit, she called my bluff.
“Oh, we are giving up on the staunch anti-New Year’s Eve resolution one-man revolution, are we?”
The jig was up. I had to admit the eye-roll emoji, which was inherent in her tone, had a point.
Maybe, just maybe, I was too harsh about the yearly pressure we put on ourselves.
Kicking things off with a fresh new challenge seems like a very human promise.
So what if I fail? There is a lot to be said for failure, right? It’s an important part of life which, in this goal-oriented society, we are increasingly losing sight of.
At least this is what I tell my kids, and I don’t want them to think that Dad is saying one thing to them and then giving himself a huge get-out-of-jail card.
All right. I will go with the herd mentality on this one. Follow the pack. Challenge the naysayer in me to a stare off to see who will blink first.
So here I go. I have to see this through. No turning back. You are my witness. One last time I will give the old NYE resolution a go.
I am, well... resolute.
David co-hosts Today Extra, 9am Monday–Wednesday, and Weekend Today, 7am weekends.
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Originally published as Do New Year’s resolutions ever work?
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